Public Opinion

In Public Opinion written by Walter Lippmann he states, " For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotype for us by our culture...." Here we read how we have been conditioned and trained to accept certain things in our society. We tend to pass judgment with out knowing the facts, and in part that is because of our culture. So in effect when the media wants to portray an image of something or someone it will try to incorporate so that it will reflect our beliefs and lifestyle.

Crystallizing Public Opinions

In the reading of "Crystallizing Public Opinion for Good Government" by Edward L Bernays, he discuss and compares how the government wants to reach a certain audiences. He states "The first thing a sales manager does when he tackles a new sales problem,... is to study the public to whom he can sell". The government does not differ much. The government will target the people that it wants to influence then attempt to sell or propose new policies.
He continues to discuss that "he realizes that the individual and the group are swayed by only a very small number of fundamental desires and emotions and instincts". Again, it is about knowing your public, their likes and dislikes, and somehow associating the that with the idea your trying to sell.

The Wealth of Nations

while reading Adam Smith's " The Wealth of Nations" recently, i found great similarity in structure and operation between his ideal and that of George Creel's CPI. such as "the division of labors based on talents" is like the various branches within the huge bureau of CPI; " the exchange of economic value" is the same thing as for CPI to sell American image while gainning support for war--the products they want", and the turnout is proportionate to the input; and the basic functions of government like to pretect society from violence, to keep justice and maintain public institutions, ect. are all what CPI propagandizes.
no wonder, propaganda is multidisciplinary, like the Constitution that covers almost all range of human activities. so to some extent, it's always more or less related to those original ideas that build up the spirit of America. and most obviously, since economic incentives are always the greatest, all those economic ideas stand out as the backbone of the whole propaganda process.
luckily, America is the open arena that defends freedom of speech, so we--either as participants or recipients in various forms of propaganda, can always choose what we believe. Compared to those that impose ideas on people by either power or force that actually intensif ies rebellious spirti instead, this is more effective and seems like still defending the democracy and human rights.

Wartime -- Deprivation

This period starts right after the depression and during a war period, when the Americans were starting to be deny natural materials such as oil, coal, iron and others like rubber, which was the first to be denied. Once this happened Americans were denied tires for cars, hoses for their gardens and other materials made from rubber. Oil was also a big deprivation to the American people. Americans were denied oil and could only buy a certain amount per week, and this hurt the tourist and resort industry because Americans could not travel. Oil for cars started not to matter because metal for cars was restricted and metal for pretty much everything was reduced or taken out. After metal, certain clothing martial was reduced such as silk. A slogan that the government used was "Use it up, wear it out, Make it do, or do without."

All this seemed easy once the food, drink, and tobacco deprivations started shortly after Pearl Harbor. Near the end of the war all the food in America was ration out with coupons but all food could be bought on the black market. Once word of this got out new slogans were introduced like "Did you drown a sailor today because YOU bought a lamb chop without giving up the required coupons?"

The American people aren't the only ones to feel the deprivation, solders felt it too. Many solders didn't eat much and have accounts of dreaming of food and eating what ever they could find like lizards, cats, dogs, etc. If Americans thought they had it tough, when the solders went into England they really saw what deprivation was. Since they have been in the war for at least two more years then America things were much worst in England. People had to wait in long lines just for common items and everything was rationed. Food was one of the biggest items being ration and in England all food was rationed and for much longer then in America.

Even though propaganda was used to make Americans follow the new ration laws it was a necessary evil. They had to ration all supplies to keep the war moving forward. Once Pearl Harbor was bombed it was much easier to convince the people to help the troops but it was still hard. The black market did cause problems but it seems the propaganda helped and we made it through the war.

Wartime: Precision Bombing/ Type Casting

Precision Bombing

Imagine yourself as a young male American during World War II. Many of your friends or relatives are going off to fight in the war for their country. You are apprehensive of enlisting due to the chance of you losing your life. You see an advertisement saying to join the US Army Air Corps as a bomber with the reassurance that you would be the safiest in a bomber. You join the army and soon realize that this is not as safe as you thought it would be. This is what a lot of young males experienced because they were convinced by propaganda that they would be serving their country at the same time as being safe. During this article I was very surprised to read about this. Technology was improving but it wasn't as great as everyone thought it was. These precision bombing teams were lucky even to hit close to their targets. This article attributes this inaccurate bombing technique to the strategy of area bombing. Then I started thinking about the current war that our country is involved in at the present time. Our technology is extremely advanced since the 1940's yet we still read in our media that sometimes our operations weren't always carried out to perfection. I believe that especially in the 1940's that the public was being misled by our government and that even today we are mislead, albeit a smaller extent, about what happens in wars that are half way around the world.

Type Casting

Many evils come out from being in a war. Devastation, ruined political relationships, casualties, and great debt. Yet what a lot of people don't realize is the racism and discrimination that comes from wars as well. In World War II words such as Japs, Japes, gook, chink, wop and kraut became acceptable descriptions of the enemies. To rally the troops and encourage them to fight, the soldiers, as well as the public, used these words to describe their enemies and make them feel inferior to justify their side of the war. I believe this is very wrong because the enemy soldiers are not the only ones affected by these racist comments. American is a country of many different cultures and these racist words affected those groups that were living in the United States during and after the war. Throughout history groups are discriminated against and it leads to conflicts, revolts and wars. People get out of control with rage and passion that could be hurting people that might not sympathize with the enemy and are actually trying to help the war effort. Racism and discrimination are a very ugly part of human nature and I don't believe there ever will be a day on this earth where there isn't any racism or discrimination.

I am public opinion

"For long we have had the theory in in this country that we could dismiss out responsibilities to foriegner by gilb references to the melting pot but every man knows that the melting pot has not melted for years. Forieners came to this country with thier eyes upturned to the flag with hope that they were coming to a land of promise and we let them land at the dock with out an out streached hand to meet them". Creels basically admiting that they were treated unjust, but i dont think he really cares, hes just trying to convince them to be pro war. So they were aided and told they were granted citizenship if they participated. So was this a double victory, because it broke down assimilation and helped the war?, its sad it would take a war for one to gain rights i wonder what was more important to the immagrants to fight in the war to be an American or to aid Europe

That Crazy Creel

As I continue to read the blogs written by both myself and my classmates it occurs to me that we look at the word propaganda as some sort of evil. I wanted to post a blog condemning the class for being such anti-propagandists. But then I decided to re-read "Public Opinion in War Time" and it fueled the anti-propagandist feelings inside of me.
As an American living during a war, I can appreciate and understand the need for the government to sell its cause to the people it governs. It is much like the need for McDonald's to advertise french fries to citizens all over the world. Admitting that I understand this does not mean that I agree with it. I've always viewed war as something that needn't be sold to the people when it is needed. War is only needed when there is no other choice but to go to war.
Since I hold this opinion on war, I find it troubling that the Committee on Public Information was even created. This is a committee whose sole purpose at its inception was to sell a war to the American people. More troubling than the creation of this committee were the words written by its leader, George Creel. "Public Opinion in War Time" is such an interesting piece because I view it as a spring board for more propaganda to follow. This piece is actually selling propaganda itself to those who read it. It is telling the American people why propaganda is needed. This is troubling because it is a one sided view on why propaganda is essential for the safety of Americans. It does not offer the reader the negative views on such actions. For example, it does not warn the American people that by allowing such a committee to exist they might have their hand forced concerning their desire to go to war.
Creel mentions that he disagrees with the notion that public opinion is a state of mind. This is preposterous in my humble opinion. Of course public opinion has its rise in the emotions of the people. I suppose living in the 21st century I have greater experience with the phenomenon that is public opinion than that of Creel. Public opinion polls are administered everyday and have different results everyday. This is simply because news is more easily attainable. The people of this country are either more or less susceptible to propaganda. Either way it seems obvious that public opinion sways at the behest of constantly breaking news stories today.

Perhaps I'm making the mistake of viewing a part of history and applying it to today's world. That is probably not a fair thing to do. However the tracks laid by Creel and the Committee on Public Information still exist today. Creel marks the modern beginning of a propaganda machine that is making the same sales pitch today as it was then. This is why i find this piece so troubling.

The Brownies Book

In the article, The Brownies Book the author talk about two young boys sam who is a white boy and billy who is a brown boy. They were two boys who would wander and be toghther. They would spilt everything equally for instance if they only had one dime or apple they would spilt it down the middle. When they went to the city's auditorium they played a song which was "My Country". Which implies that its my country and you should be loyal and do what ever you can to stay loyal. A soilder spoke and told them that "Fellow Americans Your Country is calling you". To support the United States and join the army.The propaganda in this article is when they were telling the young boys that if you join it will offer you training, health, education, scientific, and vocational. This makes it seem to these young boys that its a great idea. Fighting your country, being loyal to them and getting benefits with it. We know even now a days that there is a lot of propaganda, they have commericals on all the time about war and if you join you will get free things such as Education and sometimes even housing. They do this so people will join the army becuase the benefits sound good to some people.

The WAR, CPI and a Crisis of the American Media

The Generative Crisis of the American Media
The coming of the World War One puts American media into a generative crisis: the international climate at that time were tending to have government control over media—those with that kind of tradition, like Germany and Russia strengthened it; and those did not have that before, like Britain, as Paul Starr said, also “built up propaganda as well as censorship capacities.” In 1914, British government built up Britain’s first central propaganda bureau, the Department (later the Ministry) of Information.
Then President of the United States, Wilson, as Starr narrated, “faced the challenge of converting much of the public from a belief in neutrality that he had encouraged.” In order to achieve the goal as to make Americans willing to get into the War, he appointed George Creel to be the director of the Committee on Public Information, a federal office intending to manage public opinion.
George Creel used to be a progressive journalist, and after he get into the office, employed every channel of communication, to influence the public sphere and latter “turned to censorship.”
George Creel, as he said in his work, Public Opinion in War Time, did not believe “public opinion has its rise in the emotions, or that it is tipped from one extreme to the other by every passing rumor, by every gust of passion, or by every storm of anger.” He believed he could use the control over the press to influence and even control the public opinion and he really did that.
In addition to that, he proposed that after a period of direct influence on the pblic, censorship of speech will not need to be “imposed by Washington, but by the intolerance and bigotries of individual communities.”
His assumption was pretty close to the reality at that time. In order to guarantee the victory on the field, the Congress passed The Espionage Act and then The Sedition Act, giving the President the right to censor the public opinion. President Wilson soon established a Censorship Board, which included Creel, Burleson, and Attorney General Thomas W. Gregory. After that, as Starr said: because absence of the fear of legal consequences, “mobs of vigilantes attacked, beat and in a few cases murdered people whom they suspected of disloyalty.”
After World War One, immigrants began to get into the United States massively, and this made some local Americans uneasy. That fact, in addition with those things happened in Germany and Russia, made some progressives to try to regulate and “Americanized” new immigrants. Robert E. Park wrote in his work, Controlling Through Alliance: “The desire of native Americans (maybe he did not know that one should be local Indians) to control the foreign-language press has a very logical basis ”—Immigrants are different, and so, they are evil if they refused to be Americanized.
Being different from President Wilson and Gorge Creel, he did not intend to use institutional or legislative means to achieve his goal, instead, he wanted to use economical means—business commercials to influence new immigrants at that time.
But things at that time did not go as what they thought: after the War, more and more people began to realize that the War was not used to protect the democracy, instead, it was used to suspend the rights of the people. And this made those “Progressives” to evolutes to “Liberals”, “returning to the classical political liberalism of the eighteenth century, through not to the economic, laissez-faire liberalism of the nineteenth.” (Paul Starr, the Creation of the Media, Chapter Eight)

Most part of this blog is from the Book:
THE CREATION OF THE MEDIA, New York, Basic Books, 2004
BY PAUL STARR